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Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale Trilogy - remaster by Krome Studios

Zed Duke of Banville

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8utYSx5.jpg

Faery Tale Adventure, 1986 +M

Yeah, I said "I know". Now that's three games (on top of Bloodmoon), but the video itself still gives off strong Skyrim vibes.

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Faery Tale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead (1997) also had snow-covered mountains, but the isometric-perspective graphics, though allowing you to climb them, failed to provide an impressive appearance.

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The icy coast and caves looked cool, though. :M
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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That 1997 Faery game looks great. Any good?
Yes, Faery Tale Adventure II: Halls of the Dead is probably the best-looking isometric CRPG ever created, and it's also fun to play, though not as good it could have been. Its developer, The Dreamer's Guild, went bankrupt while the game was still under production. David Joiner and the others working on it managed to complete and ship the game, but if properly finished it would have included more content (a large island, some side quests, and possibly more). It also suffers from an unfortunate design decision to have movement be indirectly controlled via the mouse rather than directly through keyboard keys, and this is exacerbated by poor pathfinding, since two of the brothers follow whichever one the player is controlling (unless you choose to form separate groups). Also, combat is turn-based but only allows the player to control one brother in each turn (you can switch which one you have control over); they should have allowed the player to control all three brothers during combat, while somewhat lowering the frequency of combat and correspondingly increasing the rewards from combat. And the music is nothing compared to the original. On the plus side, the game combines real-time exploration with turn-based combat, has much better itemization/equipment than the original, adds a skill system (albeit limited), and has an interesting magic system with a multitude of spells.

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The above images are from my first FTA2 post in the screenshots thread, but of course there are massive spoilers there and in my second FTA2 post. I think I needed to use Microsoft Virtual PC and Windows 95 in order to play FTA2, but it isn't too difficult to set this up.
 

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
https://steamcommunity.com/app/843260/discussions/0/1841314700703407588/

Update Information
Version 3.23 now live!


General Bug Fixes

Fixed automap was labelling the "ignitable gas" as "poison gas".
Fixed extra lines at top after answering TARJAN to priests in BT1.
Fix stacking issues in legacy
Fix immortality issue with killing destiny knight - odd spellpoints meant you'd get negative spellpoints instead of dieing.
Fix issue where tile message wouldn't appear after a trap went off
Fix bug where journal is adding entries at the last room location, instead of the current tile location.
Remove hidden door again in dark domain 3. was a fix to a false bug.
Fix dead rogues are able to disarm stuff.
Don't allow playing a song on a silence square.
Fixed legacy mode exception with mad God - probably any place with a usable item, but an empty slot in the Party
Fix Animate Dead spell to work in BT1 legacy
Add saradon's house journal entry.
Better labelling of the ground outside saradon's house
Better formatting for far foe type spells.
Fix spellsong - wasn't doing full power at 10' enemies like it should have.
- now set to full power at 10'
- 2/3rd power at 20'
- half power at 30'
- quarter power at 40'
- eighth power >40'
Extra line for "your <summoned-illusion> is disbelieved!"
Change sacred grove to instantly open the door - waiting for a heart pulse is confusing to players..
Add traps and monsters to malefia lv2 & lv3.
Stagger traps and poison gas in case they are on the same square like they are in Ferofists.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
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Is there no Faery Tale Adventure thread? There damn well should be. I’ve played it on c64 and genesis but didn’t boot up dos (I assume the first was dos). Amiga the best version?

I just saw this old series of articles.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

So, I doubt a remaster or sequel will happen. Pity about #2 getting cut short but at least it was released.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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Is there no Faery Tale Adventure thread? There damn well should be. I’ve played it on c64 and genesis but didn’t boot up dos (I assume the first was dos). Amiga the best version?
The Faery Tale Adventure was created for the Commodore Amiga by David Joiner in seven months in 1986. The original version has the best graphics and best music.



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Jack Of Owls

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Just a brief update to an earlier post I made in this topic about losing my BT trilogy saved games and using cloud saves to protect them. Use Google Drive and its sync software Google Backup & Sync to make free cloud saves. With dropbox and that 3rd party program I mentioned it's too easy to delete folders on your PC when it gets confused with syncing. Google Drive never touches local folders, plus you get 100GB free storage (or at least I do for some reason) vs. a lousy 2GB with the free option for dropbox.
 

Jack Of Owls

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I'm in Lucencia and I'm not noticing a lot of special monster attacks compared to BT1 & BT2. Some Chaos thingies caused most of my party to go nuts in one battle but I haven't noticed a single Stoned status effect. The game is kind of dull compared to the wild & frenetic combat of the first two, and I think Interplay (but not Krome) dropped the ball by giving you some ridiculously overpowered spells like Heal All (resurrects your entire party to full health... WTF? Might as well have your group made up of clones of Jesus Christ himself with Our Father who art in heaven at the head of the line instead of a Paladin) before you even leave Skara Brae. Wondering if I should go on.
 

octavius

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Lack of special attacks was a critical bug in the original version.
I'm very disappointed if they didn't manage to fix what the UOP fixed.

Playing the original version vith the UOP I found that the level design improved throughout the game, but balance was off like in BT 2. Unless you flee from lots of battles your party will just become too powerful despite the enemies always getting the initiative.
 

Jack Of Owls

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Lack of special attacks was a critical bug in the original version.
I'm very disappointed if they didn't manage to fix what the UOP fixed.

Playing the original version vith the UOP I found that the level design improved throughout the game, but balance was off like in BT 2. Unless you flee from lots of battles your party will just become too powerful despite the enemies always getting the initiative.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing once I realized where the game was heading. I flee from most battles and only take on the big bosses and the rare larger than usual monster mobs to get money and loot drops for character advancement. I'm thinking the critical bugs in the original release were probably fixed since monsters have breath attacks at least, and soon after I posted the above I got stoned for the first time. haha. So I imagine the bugs have been fixed. Just goes to show how attentive Krome was to giving the best, most-bug free experience of the Bard's Tale series.

However, I'm finding BT3 to be painfully linear, especially when compared to its followup Dragon Wars where there were multiple solutions to different problems and wild, off-the-beaten paths you could take that could lead you into some very surprising areas of the game (I think when I played Dragon Wars on the C64 way back when I stumbled onto Namtar through a shortcut path using the phase walls spell far earlier than I was suppose to - I kicked his ass tho - but that's kinda cool... it means I missed a huge chunk of the game so I'm looking forward to replaying it someday). But Bard's Tale 3 has none of that... everything is so strictly linear with not a hint of an open world - just lots of trite puzzles and unchallenging combat after that first very difficult dungeon. However, I will soldier on and complete the game (hopefully) since i always wanted to play it.
 
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KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
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Amiga was pretty rocking on DW. We can hope for a remaster of DW and I'd still like to see a construction set. Its a damn pity they didn't have some unlockables like old gfx sets from the other platforms even if only as a pic slide show or photo album. Kind of ticked you couldn't transport from other games like the original. Only the appleII had a transport characters from I think wizardry to bardstale. The later games you were able to transfer from a few others. Eh.. oh well.
 

Darth Roxor

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I started the Thief of Fate yesterday, and holy shit it might just be the most annoying one of the bunch. Currently prouncing through UnterBrae and it's like every fucking monster can cast dragon breath or whatever other shit.
 

octavius

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The beginning of BT3 is the worst part. Apparantly it was to level the playing field between new characters and imported characters.
 

Darth Roxor

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The beginning of BT3 is the worst part.

If you say so. I've gone through a very short part of Arboria and decided to stop right there because it feels like there's no point in playing this game already, and I can only image its getting worse down the line.

That is to say, I downright hated BT2 from around the midpoint when it turned into a "run away from every encounter because every enemy has instakills" simulator, and it seems like BT3 is like that from the very start - although not as extreme just yet, but when every other munster has old on hit (what a fucking annoying debuff), each one has breath attacks, and there are already wizards casting what looks like mangar's mallet - so I can only imagine how dumb it gets later on.
 

octavius

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I don't know about the remakes, but with the original BT 3 with the UOP I had the opposite experience. If fighting every battle things get easier and easier as you overlevel the monsters, even if they always got the initative.
OTOH level design got increasingly better.
 

Jack Of Owls

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I stopped playing BT3 Remastered in the "time travel" warzone levels. I stand by my assertion that Krome Studios did a superb job in remastering this but they can't overcome the game's basic design flaws without turning it into a completely different game which defeats the point of a remaster. I expect Wasteland to be much better and I'm really looking forward to it. Once I started playing Pathfinder Kingmaker and getting into it it was hard to go back to BT3 Remastered with its problematic lack of depth though I may go back to BT3 Remastered once I finish P:KM but probably not.
 

felipepepe

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Bard's Tale was always the weakest of the "big" 80's RPG series, and it aged terribly. It's the kind of game that only made sense in the dawn of the RPG genre, when people had like 1 game per year and no frame of reference to what a good RPG system is.

Even with the remakes, very few people will actually bother to play them, so Fargo can just carry on hyping them as a legendary titles, while Wizardry, Ultima, Might & Magic and the Gold Box games fade away from memory...

:negative:
 

Incendax

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I hate VR, but I would be tickled pink to play a VR Pool of Radiance.
Step by step through Phlan. Jump into tactical mode and see the battle from the perspective of each character as they take their turn. Slums looking like slums. See the auction at Podol Plaza. Etc.
 

octavius

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I still love BT 2 for some of the best mapping challenges of any CRPGs. No M&M games came close to that, even if they were better in most other respects.
 

Metro

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If you say so. I've gone through a very short part of Arboria and decided to stop right there because it feels like there's no point in playing this game already, and I can only image its getting worse down the line.

That is to say, I downright hated BT2 from around the midpoint when it turned into a "run away from every encounter because every enemy has instakills" simulator, and it seems like BT3 is like that from the very start - although not as extreme just yet, but when every other munster has old on hit (what a fucking annoying debuff), each one has breath attacks, and there are already wizards casting what looks like mangar's mallet - so I can only imagine how dumb it gets later on.
BT3 was meant to be played with imported characters. On the off chance someone was decline enough not to have played through BT2, that initial dungeon/quest was meant to put your characters at a spot where your level would be appropriate to continue.
 

octavius

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BT2 was definitely more fun with imported characters, due largely to a very good starter dungeon.
In BT3 you may as well import characters.
 

Darth Roxor

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I was under the impression that importing was breaking for these games.

In that case maybe I should just start bt3 over with full-imported partay from bt2 while I'm still not particularly far in.
 

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